Point What Art Thou?

And we've reached the beginning of this blog as my commentary blog for all stuff related to photography and the art. A disclaimer here: I do not see myself as an artist because I do not think I'm there yet. But these are my opinions. Feel free to leave yours as well.

Anyway, in celebration of this new beginning, I shall begin by questioning the value of art. What exactly is art? Dictionary.COM defines it as so:

art [ahrt]
–noun

1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
   
2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
   
3. a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.
   
4. the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.
   
5. any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.
   
6. (in printed matter) illustrative or decorative material: Is there any art with the copy for this story?
   
7. the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
   
8. the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
   
9. skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
   
10. a branch of learning or university study, esp. one of the fine arts or the humanities, as music, philosophy, or literature.
    
11. arts,
    
12. a. (used with a singular verb) the humanities: a college of arts and sciences.
    
13. b. (used with a plural verb) liberal arts.
    
14. skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.
    
15. trickery; cunning: glib and devious art.
    
16. studied action; artificiality in behavior.
    
17. an artifice or artful device: the innumerable arts and wiles of politics.
    
18. Archaic. science, learning, or scholarship.
    

The general focus in the meaning is the aesthetic of art, in that it has to be something "beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance". Of course, the definition of what is so changes from time to time, as with all other meanings being slippery in semiotics. And it seems that what is beautiful, appealing nowadays are works that are shocking. The more shocking the better it is. In April this year, a senior art student at Yale University shocked the world by claiming to repeatedly artificially inseminate herself and then induce abortion, using her abortion blood to paint her work. Another excellent example is Russian performance artist Alexander Brener who shitted in front of a Vincent van Gogh painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

So does that mean that if it's not shocking enough, it ain't a good piece of work? I doubt so. And I quote a passage I read here:

However, we the paying audience are here not to be shocked but to learn about shock, not to see art occur, but to discuss it. A discussion about violence need not always involve violence. That is why we have language: however flawed it may be, language enables us to think about things without necessarily having to enact them all the time.

To me, art needs to provoke thoughts and allow the viewers' minds to finish the work for the artist, for the viewers themselves. The shock should come not from the art itself but rather from the realization of the significance of the art.